In his prophetic “1984” novel George Orwell named our current real-life predicament: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
Prior to becoming president in 2008, candidate Barack Obama predicted, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” In his 2016 campaign speeches now President Donald Trump promised to “Make America great again.”
To connect the import of these quotes on an intellectual level, we must remember that America is much more than a place; it is a far reaching, all embracing state of mind, body, and soul. Ideologically it is a philosophical idea based on the concept of inalienable individual rights that from its realization as a constitutional republic has supported every aspect of our unique country, a concept so original that it made America exceptional in the entire history of humankind.
Physically, the concept of individual rights recognizes a first condition of liberty from dictatorial edicts and assures sovereignty of property and economic freedom. Again: exceptional. As a result of the first two fundamentals of America’s exceptionalism, the country’s soul — our shared animating principles of reason, productivity and responsibility as free, independent individuals — also creates a moral foundation of mutual respect, a self reliance, and a spirit of achievement that defines both the source and the sum of American culture in general.
All of these exceptional attributes rely on the concept of individualism.
Without individualism as the centerpiece, America’s national exceptionalism as a political-economic entity could not have come into existence. Furthermore, our broader cultural identity regarding subjects such as education, fine and popular arts-entertainment, science, physical-mental health, leisure activities, friend-family relationships, ambitions, everything that constitutes the core social values of our country also expresses a singular love of individualism.
So independence of thought, work, and lifestyle are the core values of our cultural distinctiveness as well as our founding doctrines. These freedoms of individual choice in every arena of life are what made The United States “America.”
Even though imperfect in certain ways, in the past this lofty ideal of individualism largely permeated every aspect of our national identity from the laws that legally protect it to the arts that aesthetically celebrate it and the education that passed its unprecedented legacy on to our youth.
Obama’s “fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” however, was and is a specifically stated declaration of ideational war against the individual.
As a Saul Alinsky-method-trained community organizer in Chicago before entering politics, he learned how to take from the “haves” and give to the “have nots” not for the professed purpose of helping the have nots, but for the stealth purpose of controlling both.
He subsequently taught Alinsky’s method to others, and recently (in 2013) as a sitting president formed a nonprofit foundation, Organization For Action (OFA), to formally expand those tactics for government control over the individual long after his executive tenure. True to his word, his entire presidency focused on “transforming” America by weakening its global supremacy without and controlling the population within.
From his “Apology Tour” to Obamacare, climate change, Common Core, to the expansion of military interventions and resultant power of terroristic ISIS-ISIL and the support of nuclear-ravenous Iran — to fueling tribal racial and gender conflicts at home — he toiled to degrade the founding values of individualism and independent choice that made America exceptional and devolve our country into a turbulent, fearful, divided culture of confusion and crises. In order to accomplish these nefarious goals he built his administration on a scaffold of lies, and he was not alone in his mission. Countless other power-lustful companions shared in and perhaps masterminded the charge, but as the most influential person in the world, he led the cavalry.
To add to Mr, Obama’s chicanery, we now have fake news as the “news” of today, and this previously hidden phenomenon is finally revealed to a naïve and unsuspecting public. Politically correct-propaganda movies, a collectivist mainstream media, and an indoctrination-oriented educational system have dominated communication systems for decades; hence, there has been very little competition in the marketplace of ideas.
Now, with this unusual and volatile election process and the press being exposed for regularly broadcasting fake news — outright lying to the public — in order to advance their own agendas and those of a candidate or special interest group, that unholy communication alliance has unraveled.
So what must Donald Trump do to fulfill his promise to “Make America great again”?
Trump is not a philosophical or consistent thinker. But as an outsider and a man of action who understands the frustrations of individuals fed up with a government that increasingly robs them of their inalienable rights, he does have a chance to make America great again. If he keeps his promises to reverse much of the Obama and company damage, vilifies deceit and promotes honesty in the press and in Congress by exposing lies, appoints Constitutional originalists to uphold our inalienable rights, strengthens our military and fights radical Islamic terrorism with might and right, disables federal agencies that choke commerce, and champions individualism in all its glorious diversity, America may regain its global security and respect, its national cultural identity, and its very soul as an exceptional idea made manifest throughout the land.
By leading the nation away from all things fake and collective and toward all things true and individual, Mr. Trump actually could become a revolutionary president because, “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
[First published at Newsmax.]
Alexandra is the founding president of American Renaissance for the Twenty-first Century (ART), a NYC-based 501 (C) (3) nonprofit educational foundation devoted to a rebirth of beauty and life-affirming values in all of the fine arts.
